The Baptist and the Thief

            I have a couple of things on my mind today, one of which is John the Baptist.  John was prophesied about in the Old Testament; In Isaiah he was referred to as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and in Malachi 3:1, it says, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.”  He was sent by God; his mission was to lay the foundation for the Lord Jesus Christ.  Of course, what John himself is known for is that he baptized people.  He apparently baptized lots of people.  The Bible tells us that he picked a spot on the Jordan River where there was a lot of water.  Now, it would seem to me that, if Jordan is a river, then there should be a sizable amount of water at any given place along its banks, but they tell me that in many places it is very shallow, so John must have been avoiding those places.  In any case, John had been sent to make sure that people were prepared for the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and to do that, he baptized people.  That raises the question, how did water baptism prepare the way for Jesus?

            Of course, we know that Jesus didn’t baptize anyone Himself, but His disciples baptized many people.  Should we assume that baptism was simply a habit that they picked up from John the Baptist, and that Jesus never took the time to correct them?  He was right there—if what they were doing was wrong, surely He would have explained it to them.  We know that Jesus taught baptism, even though He didn’t perform the rite Himself.  Some have said that Jesus wasn’t talking about water baptism, and, indeed, John the Baptist told the crowd that Jesus would baptize them with Holy Ghost.  Of course, Jesus can do that, the rest of us really can’t.  Interestingly enough, in Acts 10, Peter was preaching to a group of Romans , and the Holy Ghost fell on them, and they were spiritually baptized.  Peter then asked the question, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”  If spiritual baptism were enough, then why did Peter ask for water, and why did he command that they be baptized (again)?  The easy answer, of course, is that Peter was simply confused, but I have a hard time believing that.  Remember that Peter was hand-picked by Jesus, in fact, Jesus gave him the ‘keys to the kingdom.’  Certainly, Peter made mistakes, but God was aware, and God took care of those mistakes.  In Acts 10 in particular, we know that Peter had been praying hard, so I would expect him to be particularly receptive to the leading of the Holy Ghost.

Some have also pointed out that Paul didn’t baptize, at least, not very often.  I’m not convinced of that; in 1 Corinthians 1, he wrote about divisions in the church, and he commented that he was glad that he hadn’t personally baptized in Corinth, because some might make a big deal about being baptized by Paul.  He corrects himself, though, and admits that he did baptize Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas.  He does go on to say that he was not sent to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.  Of course, if he preached the Gospel the way that Philip did, then people were getting baptized, even if Paul himself wasn’t performing the baptisms.

The other thing on my mind is the thief on the cross.  I have had a number of people want to talk to me about the thief.  They want to remind me that he was not baptized.  I am well aware that he was not baptized; quite frankly, it wouldn’t really make much difference whether he was or not; Jesus didn’t command baptism until after His death, burial, and resurrection.  Furthermore, Apostle Paul tells us in Romans (the Book of Romans has been called, “the book of salvation” by some) that the point of baptism is to spiritually take on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  Clearly the thief couldn’t do that, since Jesus died only shortly before the thief, but, instead, he was actually crucified with Jesus—something that most of us would never be able to do.  Besides that, Jesus had power on earth to forgive sins, so He was able to erase the thief’s past in recognition of the sincerity of his heart without forcing him to wait until after the resurrection…